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office-holding would be done away with, leaving the officers free to inquire into and learn their duties to their office and to the public.

Prof. Ely says:

One of the strongest arguments in favor of a postal telegraph, is that such a telegraph would carry with it an improvement in our civil service. It would increase the number of offices in which civil-service rules would be applied, even according to existing law, and it would be an irresistible argument in favor of the extension and elevation of the civil service. Some want to have us wait until the civil service has been already improved, but the purchase of the telegraph lines would inevitably carry with it the improvement of the civil service.

The country would insist upon it. The acquisition of the telegraph lines by the nation would convert more people to civilservice reform in one day than all the speeches which have ever been delivered on the subject would win to this good cause in a year.9

The plan advocated in this paper includes the civil-service act as one of its essential terms, for without it we run the risk of having, for a time at least, boss-ownership instead of public ownership of the telegraph. The recent extension of the civilservice act to 30,000 new positions, argues well for the future of this great reform.10 That such an order should have come from President Cleveland, who has not been noted for his absence of partisan feeling, indicates that the election of a man of thorough independence would probably complete the transformation of our service. Even without that, the work will be done by the piece, each president ordering a section into line at the end of his term when the delay of justice can no longer aid his own political purposes, but may, on the contrary, strengthen his successor. Or he may act before the end of his term and from less selfish motives; the main thing for the nation is that he act.

19. The public ownership of the telegraph will remove one of the antagonisms that weaken the cohesion of society and retard the development of civilization."

20. It will be a step toward coöperation and partnership,

8 The Voice, Aug. 29, 1895, pp. 1, 8.

The total number of positions that must now be filled from the classified civil-service lists is 85,100, out of a total of a little more than 200,000 positions in the national service, aside from the army and navy.

10 ARENA, Dec. 1895, pp. 51-2.

11 See Part VIII, ARENA, August, 1896.

away from private monopoly, usurpations, and taxation without representation.12

Let us now see what the defendants have to say; that means the Western Union, for, as Mr. Bell said to the Senate Committee on Post offices and Post roads, May 20th, 1896:

The only persons who have ever put in an appearance in opposition to this measure, have been the officers, attorneys, and agents of the telegraph companies. No representative of the people has ever opposed it.13

12 See Parts VIII and IX, ARENA, Aug. and Sept. 1896.

13 Sen. Doc. 291, 54-1, p. 18.

THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF THE CUBANS.

BY THOMAS W. STEEP.

HEN the recognition of belligerency was argued for the

WHE Cubans by the friends of Cuba in Congress, it became

a question of pivotal importance as to whether the Cubans had a government to recognize as dual to that of Spain; whether the government, if any, was merely nominal or chimerical; whether, if existing and operating, it had the potency to receive recognition and thus justify such action by the United States.

The first thing that attracted my interest on arriving at the war field of Cuba, in the Province of Santiago, early one sunny morning in January, was the obsequious ceremony of the government prefecto who received me and gave me my first roasted boniato, upon which I afterwards so often appeased hunger. I had come out on the field by crawling beneath the barbed-wire military line around Santiago one night and marching by stealth in the early dawn to the mountains and over them to the interior. A body of Cubans escorted me. Fatigued aud hungry, the prefecto's attention in serving coffee and boniatos seemed over-due kindness. I offered to pay him, but he raised his hands and said, "No! No!" He was a government officer. From that time on my interest was enlisted in the study of the civil organization of the Cubans.

When ex-President Cleveland intimated that the civil government provisional of the Cuban insurgents was puerile and immature, and said it was, for the most part, a government on paper, he was more correct than otherwise. In the first place, however, let me say that the Cubans have a government, that it is not an impractical one, that the people are loyal to it. To this loyalty, which is so striking for its widespread prevalence, and so sympathy-eliciting because of the sacrifices which are made for it by the Cubans, I shall refer later.

The statement made by the ex-President, while for the most part correct, is superficial, because it does not substantiate its

assertiveness. It is one that any intelligent observer of the anterior conditions of Cuba last December might have correctly though vaguely made.

The Cuban government is immature. To say that most of it exists on paper is not sinistrous to an ambitious civil organization which has been in existence but two years. Schemed exactly like that of the States, the unfavorable condition under which it labors makes many of its functions of mere nominal existence. For instance, the Secretary of State just at this time has no duty to perform other than, perhaps, to doff his figurative robes of state and get out and fight. The Secretary of War has no routine office, because the Cubans have no diplomatic corps and the rebellion is conducted by aggressive generals who have the munitions of war in their own hands.

Yet the Cuban insurgents have established a civil organization in the interior over which they hold sway, the strength and qualities of endurance and prominence of which defy the government of Spain itself. The remoteness of the Cuban headquarters, and the control which Spain has had over the regular news channels that lead from Cuba, have kept the world largely in ignorance of the real condition of the Cuban insurgents.

Fundamentally and upon which the plans of the government are drawn, the Republic of Cuba now comprehends all the area of the island of Cuba. The disposition taken by the head civil officers is that the entire island is under dominion of the Cuban Republic, but that because some powerful foreign enemy has landed on certain parts and taken possession -as, for instance, Havana and its harbor, and Santiago and other cities the civil rule cannot be extended into these quarters until by strategy the enemy can be driven from the shores of Cuba. In the national organization the power of government was transferred by the popular assembly to a Council of Government. Then departments were formed, with secretaries at the head-state, war, foreign affairs, interior, and finances. At the head of the government were placed a provisional President and Vice-President. In the Council of Government is vested the legislative power.

Politically the island is divided into four States, Oriente, Camaguey, Las Villas, and Occidente. Each State is divided

into districts, and each district into as many prefecturas and sub-prefecturas as are deemed necessary. A district has from seven to fifteen prefecturas. The State is presided over by a Governor, who reports to the Secretary of Interior. The Lieutenant-Governor is under the Governor, and has jurisdiction over a district. His corps consists of one secretary and one assistant clerk. The prefectura is the smallest political subdivision but one the sub-prefectura. The prefectura has a secretary and assistants. Then follow the sub-prefecturas, of which there are generally from four to eight in each prefectura.

The Lieutenant-Governor is the intermediary between the Governor and the prefectura. Besides his executive functions the prefecto has judicial power. He records all contracts between citizens, including marriages. He has the power to form a jury and to try all cases, from the simplest intrigues to those of spies guilty of treason, whenever the cases cannot be submitted to court-martial.

Every portion of territory possessed by the Cubans is subject to civil order. The minutest detail is so accurately and delicately balanced that, though the thoroughness for which the civil officers are even now adroitly working has not yet been attained, the whole governmental machinery is in harmonic operation.

The facts which I have set down relative to the geographic distribution of the government I have myself seen. I spent much time in the saddle on the march with Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, who, as Governor of Oriente, conducts the affairs of state in the saddle. With him I visited the prefectural workshops and many well-managed prefecturas. I saw much rearranging and readjusting of these functions by the Governor.

Almost the first thing the Governor said to me at our first meeting at Baire Arriba, was: “I have been wishing for months that I could get hold of an American newspaper man to show him the inside of the revolution. The American people don't know how strong we are. They have no way of finding out. Now I will show you our civil government as it is in operation." We visited the medical posts "drug-stores" as the Cubans call them the tanneries, workshops, and the various officials, including the tax-collector.

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